Put away the pink slice. Take down the illuminations. No celebratory cheesy chips. Hold the cowies. We are in trouble. If you missed our journey to the centre of the Earth last week, here it is. So, we can absolutely score goals, at times plenty. But every formation we’ve tried at present, we’ve got more leaks than a greengrocer. The table looks terrifying.

Spurs, Derby, Blackburn and Everton are amongst our next 5 opponents. If that isn’t an opportunity to get back up the table then what is? We make an attempt to shore up the defence but it fails.

We get beyond Hartlepool in the FA Cup, the board feel it is a ‘good result’. That is telling. Then the Spurs game arrives, and we continue to pick up red cards. That said, it’s a bloody win!

At Everton, there is another red, but its not for us. Oster punishing his old club.

We get poor Howard the sack. He was a lame duck…

Another Oster masterclass sees us bag three more points. What is happening here?!?!

We can smell 7^th place.

This is a problem.

This is life changing.

20 months of injuries in his career so far. Give up son. We bring in some cover on the cheap.

We draw with Division Three Bournemouth in the FA Cup. Woeful, but I’d not be fussed about losing. Wenger taking over at PSG and really looking for a top ‘keeper…

Dirty Leeds nick a late equaliser. We remain defensively frail.

We lose to Bournemouth in the replay as I field a weakened side. I’m not counting that against the run. FFS.

We pick up an excellent result in the big Derby, but we could really have done without that red. We’re like having the skids. Dirty.

Ed De LOL has a mare and the run goes on. This is absolutely waxa!

Carter-off. This is bad, he’s been a critical player since joining with goals and assists galore.

Jody Craddock will have to step in at the back. I don’t trust Brown anymore. Wow!

Not wow…

Are we running a football club or a fight club? Bloody hell. We adjust to cope with the threat of Rosler and, we don’t keep him out, but we keep the run going!

The board are happy. There will be jaffa cakes back in the biscuit tin at half-time.

We finish this save against 20^th placed Palace at home. It would seem like the sort of game for this run to end, especially with 20-goal Saha out suspended.

Oster comes back and picks up a booking he could do without. Don is making the central role his own, finally finding form. I am now happy to look at the table:

That said, 7^th is still the target. There’s no way we can win the bragging rights given we are 11 points behind Newcastle. Well, that was a turn up for the books wasn’t it? I’m not sure why or how our form has turned around. Weaver came back in and we’ve stuck to 3 at the back – maybe Kevin Ball is just too old now and needs to sit it out? We’ll be back next week for the final run-in and see if we can get over the line 7^th or higher. By now in reality Sunderland had fallen to 9^th after a woeful run of form and were two games away from finding their first win since 18^th December. We can still beat Peter’s win ratio, but there’s a hard road ahead. See you next time marras!

You can follow Andrew on twitter: @KingOfTheRooks

Come on in marras. Last time out we’d had a start of two halves for our second crack at the big time. If you missed it, you can catch up here. After winning 5 and drawing 1, we lost 4 on the bounce; a run that coupled up to a bunch of injuries and a loss of form by players. Here’s where it left us:

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Well, marra’s…we’re back for another crack at the big time. The Disco lights of Sunderland are officially dead as Quinny has retired and the board have spent all our money on a new second tier stand. This is going to be our final crack at finishing 7^th or higher. You can catch-up on our great escape last season here. We make transfer progress at last:

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Haway in me marras! Welcome back to another episode of “boy, this is a struggle” brought to you from the beautiful and scenic Wearside. Trying to be Peter Reid is hard. If you want to feel my pain, you can catch up with last week here. Last time out we played around with the formation and personnel and improved our form – just not enough to keep out the relegation zone, but it feels promising:

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Haway then lairds, lets get back into it! If you’d like to catch-up with last week’s difficult reading, then you can do so here. If you’re not one for looking back in anger, then just stay with us. Last time out we’d bombed down the Premier League table, few players were stepping up, and we were in crisis. The we adopted the Cruyff tactic and we steadied the ship. The board were unhappy:

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Well hello there marras! Here we are again at Sunderland. It’s the arse-end of the season, but if you missed the journey so far, catch-up from the beginning here. In similar circumstances to current life, nobody wants to sign, which makes me worry deeply about securing promotion. There’s a little way to go yet.

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We’ve been Mullin things over marras, is the season really going so well? If you want to reflect on that, catch up from the start here. We’re climbing the table but its tight at the top. Still, attempt to sign Holloway and Heckingbottom who should have still been at the club, but £12,000 a week is a bug in the game we cannot ignore. Meanwhile the home cooking icon is the latest to reject us:

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Welcome back to Niall Quinn’s continuous disco, also known as Sunderland AFC in 1997. As far as disco’s go, real life was the true disappointment of staying until the lights come on. In this case, they went out on quite the roller-coaster. If you missed last week’s start to the season, or need a reminder of the challenge we’ve set ourselves, you can catch up here.

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Oh what can it mean? That’s right, sorry Dave, this is a Sunderland save. As the records will show, Peter Reid had a largely fantastic season at Sunderland in 1997/98 ending the league’s top scorers with the season failing at the place dreams go to die, Wembley, in what is largely considered the most entertaining playoff final in history. It was the youngest back four in the club’s history that day, perhaps a reason for the failure.

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